UK Police Chiefs Outraged At Reservoir Dogs Game News

If there's one thing in life that's almost guaranteed, it's that any high-profile videogame that leans towards the more violent persuasion will usually get identified and demonised by certain UK tabloid newspaper.

But not this time, as the newspaper appears to have been beaten to it by the UK's Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO). The group has taken it upon itself to attach some form of notoriety to Eidos and Volatile Games' forthcoming adaptation of Reservoir Dogs on Xbox, PlayStation2, and PC.

Speaking to the Yorkshire News, one representative of the ACPO said, "Anything that encourages violent emotions, including such emotions towards members of the police service, is particularly disturbing and can only be described as...It is disappointing to find violent video games on the market that may cause psychological harm to those who play them."

In the report by the regional newspaper, it's the games portrayal of 'suffering' experienced by police officer hostages, who can be tortured with cigar burns, and cigar cutters, that has been cited as causing much of the ACPO's outrage.

However in a recent interview with TVG, Reservoir Dogs' Design Manager Nick Adams of Volatile Games, revealed that the game is far from being the sadistic-for-the-sake-of-it thrill that it's being portrayed as:

"What we have tried to do though is make the player think a little more about the consequences of their actions...in Reservoir Dogs, we wanted to make the player feel bad about what they were doing and then give them the option to not do it. We've tried to take the moral theme that's clearly present in the movie and put that in the hands of the player."

Furthermore, Adams explained that Volatile were following a similar strategy to Tarantino when it came to representing some of the more brutal violent acts in the game:

"As with the ear scene though, we've not specifically shown the actual acts, and instead have the camera panning up at the last second. This is arguably a more powerful technique as it relies on the player's imagination and also stays faithful to the movie in terms of its directorial style."

Even if the Reservoir Dogs game didn't have such measures within it, the fact remains that it's all about a gamer's choice; it's not mandatory to buy the game. It's recently been awarded an 18+ certificate from the British Board of Film Classification, making it illegal for retailers to sell the game to minors (thank god we don't have the first amendment over here), and furthermore it's far from a handbook on how to kill cops that it's being portrayed as by the ACPO. The fact is that there are people in society who are more pre-disposed to violent behaviour than others, who even in a world of violence-free media, would commit violent acts.

I'm also sure that Eidos will congratulate the ACPO for giving the game some free marketing and for making it become notorious, something that will surely serve to boost sales of Reservoir Dogs on its release at the end of September.

We'll have more news shortly...